It wasn’t much, but prices could claim a bit more weather support than they had last week in recording upticks Monday ranging from only a penny or two to about 15 cents. Gains were fairly evenly spread across geographic markets.
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Articles from Wasn
Futures Reverse Down to Key Support Amid Bearish Fundamentals
It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but in the end there was nothing bulls could do to keep natural gas futures prices from free-falling lower Monday. The combination of mild temperature forecasts, negative technical factors, and the continuation of an unimpressive tropical storm season was enough to place bears back at the market’s helm. September futures closed at $4.630, down 24.4 cents or 5% for the session.
Rupture News Helps Boost Screen and Also Cash
Other than severe heat in the Southwest and inland California, gas wasn’t getting much weather support Wednesday, as much of the South turned decidedly mild in the wake of a cool front moving southeastward. But prices still managed fairly strong rebounds that were between 10 and 29 cents in most cases, and up to about 30 cents at the PG&E citygate and above 40 cents in San Juan Basin.
Wood Expresses Satisfaction with CA Power Contract Settlements
FERC Chairman Pat Wood last Thursday said that he wasn’t disappointed with the number of settlements that were recently reached between several power suppliers and California over disputed high-priced contracts signed by the state during the 2000-2001 western energy crisis.
Producer Eyes Rockies Differential Blowout, Installs Basis Swaps
A 17% increase in production in the second quarter 2002 wasn’t enough to offset “vertically challenged” Rockies prices for Tom Brown Inc. (TBI), which reported net income of $4.8 million or $0.12 per diluted share as compared to $26.2 million or $0.65 per diluted share during the same period of the prior year.
Producer Eyes Rockies Differential Blowout, Installs Basis Swaps
A 17% increase in production in the second quarter 2002 wasn’t enough to offset “vertically challenged” Rockies prices for Tom Brown Inc. (TBI), which reported net income of $4.8 million or $0.12 per diluted share as compared to $26.2 million or $0.65 per diluted share during the same period of the prior year.
Moody’s: Credit Downgrades Outpace Upgrades in 2nd Quarter
Although economic growth has resumed, the increase in corporate expenditures wasn’t great enough to stem the rising tide of credit-rating downgrades during the second quarter, said Moody’s Investors Service last week. In fact, it reported that credit-rating downgrades exceeded upgrades by a margin of 4.9-to-1 during the period, the highest ratio since the record 6.3-to-1 in the fourth quarter of 1990.
Alaska Pipe Route, Pipe Inspections Mandated in Senate Bill
The first full week of debate on the Senate omnibus energy bill wasn’t particularly favorable for the natural gas industry, as lawmakers adopted amendments that mandated the Alaska Highway as the route for a proposed North Slope gas pipeline, folded a controversial pipeline-safety measure into the energy bill that mandates pipeline inspections every five years, and ordered a study of whether the federal government should expand controls on hydraulic fracturing as a means to produce gas.
Shareholders Continue to Flee from Enron; Stock Falls to $9.67
No news would be good news for Enron Corp., but that wasn’t the case again on Tuesday, as its stock fell to lows not seen in about a decade. Although in better times being named the most actively traded stock would be a bonus, Enron probably would have liked to have heard otherwise, and by the time the New York Stock Exchange had closed, more than 20 million shares had changed hands to close at $9.67.
Rockies/San Juan Points Avoid General Market Downturn
As some sources had suspected, the recent buildup in air conditioning load wasn’t strong enough to sustain this week’s bull market in the wake of another big storage injection report and associated screen softness. Only small to moderate Rockies/San Juan increases went against the grain of overall market declines Thursday that were mostly between a dime and 30 cents but got as big as nearly $1.50 for California border deliveries into SoCalGas.